Muay Thai Is Slow

"Muay Thai is slow" - that is what my kruu Petsila was telling me while gently stepping rhythmically from one foot to another, waving his hands hands up and down like a cobra's head in front of his face.

This is not news to me, but somehow I hadn't realised fully. Every time I saw a fight on youtube, or an inter club at my gym, you notice that westerners they have to rush. They start a fight and they have to knock the other person down in the shortest time possible. I don't like that, and I don't like the trash talk behind every single fight of american competition. UFC is just the new Boxing in America, with the same attitude, the anger, the television biz. Muay Thai is a sport, is not a street fight, and westerners should learn that as well when they train.

I saw fights at Lumpini stadium, Bangla and Suwit. Thai people are relaxed, they start slow for the first two rounds. They feel each other with single strikes and see how the other reacts. If someone hits they other good, they nod at each other - "that was good, you got me, back I will get back at you".
They go for a good exchange of blows, and then reset for the next one. If someone miss a kick, they don't capitalise on their mistake instead they wait for one another. Just have a look at any thai vs thai fight, you can tell they have an understanding, that they have to show who is better, but in the same time they want a challenge, they don't want an easy fight. Often they taunt each other just because the fight is too easy, they want the other to recoup stamina and get back at them so that they can have a good fight.

This is the opposite for westerners. The intent is to kill not to have a good fight. If the fight is too easy they pressure more until the opponent is down on the floor. There is no understanding, there is no sportsmanships, there is no fun, is just kill-kill-kill.

By the last round often, a fighter know whether they have won or lost already, you will find thai people walking around the ring and play a little. "I know I won, I don't have to prove anything anymore" and "I know I lost, he was the better fighter" are the thoughts in the fighters mind's, there is no need to knock each other out, the fight is over.

Training in Phuket

When we arrived to Phuket we started to look for gyms right away. Luckily the area we chose to stay is where all the gyms are located. Tiger, Dragon and Top Team are all in the same road not to far from our hotel (although we still needed a taxi to get there). Not so far from that road there is the Suwit Stadium which also has a gym.

We decided to go for Dragon, and I was very happy with this choice. All trainers are thai and some of them are fighters too. All the gyms have two classes a day except for Sunday in which people rest. Classes are a good deal, they are cheap, you get a full training and you get to meet people, but we went for one-to-one session.

In Dragon when they assign you a trainer is going to be permanent, unless they are not available. My kruu was Petsila, which is also a fighter and he was awesome. The training however is only on pads and light sparring, no warming up or conditioning, but you can do that in your own time, which is good, because then you pay 1 hour of personal training instead of half.

The first day the trainer tested us a bit to understand our level, and each of them established a different pace. During the training they focused 100% on technique, correcting us every single time, and then let us flow on pads until the next thing came up.

It appears to me that gyms here don't have a style, but the style of training and fighting is different with every kruu. In a way is good to learn different styles, but for I am taught the style is reflected on the way I fight, and the style we fight in my gym is very tactical. This happened in Banchamek as well, and I believe is true for most other gyms too.

On the other hand Petsila gave me really good advice, and helped me a lot technically. Minor things that I wouldn't know in by training with westerners, but very important. I would like to go train again there, and if you have a chance to train in Phuket I would like to recommend you to go to Dragon.

Training in Bangkok

Me and some friends from my muay thai gym decided to take a holiday together in  Thailand, and include in the holiday some training days. Training in Thailand is an experience that a lot of people go for if they already train muay thai as Thailand is where this martial art is coming from.

We didn't have an exact plan of where to go and thought to just stay in central Bangkok and try different gym. But unfortunately Bangkok is extremely crowded, gyms are not as close as we thought and getting anywhere with taxis is always an adventure. Believe me when I say that taxi meter don't know how to get anywhere even if they have an address or sometime don't want to even bother.

Eventually we found out that Banchamek gym was in range from where we were staying and decided to try and go there. If you are not familiar with this name you may have heard of Buakaw? Well, that is  his own gym.

The place is not far, however we were staying at Asia Hotel by Rachatewi station which incidentally is on Petchaburi road which lead straight to the gym. On the other hand that area feature a massive, permanent traffic jam.

We got lucky on the first day as we took a taxi early in the afternoon and somehow managed to get there in less then half an hour and with less that 100 baht(not even £2).

The place is surrounded by banana trees and look amazing and genuine. We have been greeted warmingly by one of the fighters and said that we could train right away, but we didn't bring any gear with us and decided to come back later in the afternoon.

The place is not visited by tourist, most fighters were in Surin with Buakaw (the other gym outside Bangkok) and we had a chance to train one-to-one for about and hour with a trainer each.

We started with some skipping with the classic thai heavy rope, then moved on to shadow boxing follow with 4 rounds of pads. We are not training in the hottest season, but the heat makes the workout quite harder. After pads we would do some bag work for technique and conditioning, a bit of clinch and we concluded with some abs.

The trainers are fun and make the staying there very enjoyable, but they get serious during training. They also test you, and see how far you can take it. In fact some days I have been pushed harded the others with longer skipping time, more and longer rounds of pads.

We have been kept going for a week now and loved it, but in few days we will be flying to Phuket, therefore we will be soon say goodbye to Banchamek gym and see what the south of Thailand has to offer.